“I’d feel that way, too, if I had been in your place,” he said.  “Now what we want to do is to devise some plan of trapping your friend and enemy.  Mr. Wyatt.  What do you think?”

“Once,” replied Henry, “when, he was carrying war belts between the Shawnees and Miamis we simply seized him and took them away from him.  We must do something of this kind.  Where is he staying?”

“Alvarez, has a house near the river.  He is there.  I know that the two are plotting all the while, but I cannot get the proof.”

“Do Wyatt and Alvarez know that I’m out?”

“No, neither of them.”

“That’s good.  I think I can surprise Braxton Wyatt.  If I can get my hands on him I’m sure that we’ll find those maps.  What kind of a house has Alvarez?”

“You can see it from that window.  A pretty place, standing among the trees.”

Henry looked, and the longer he looked the more pleased he felt.  The trees were thick around the house of Alvarez and the fact gave him an idea.

“I think I know how to do it,” he said.

Oliver Pollock leaned forward, his shrewd face eager, and for a few minutes the two talked low and earnestly.

CHAPTER XVII

THE FLAW IN THE ARMOR

Don Francisco Alvarez was in a fairly happy frame of mind.  It is true that he could have been happier, but a revulsion from a great state of suspense had come to him.  When he had been so boldly accused in the presence of the Governor General, cold fear had struck at his heart, despite his courage and cunning.  He knew that the seeds of suspicion had been sowed deep in the heart of Bernardo Galvez and that the plant would grow fast in the warm, moist air of intrigue that overhung New Orleans.

But days had passed and nothing had happened.  Moreover, the five whom he feared so much were hard and fast in the military prison within the walls, and no proof of their charges had been brought forth.  Time, too, worked steadily for him.  It not only weakened the accusation against him, but it also gave his powerful friends at the court of Madrid time to help him and his ambition.  That little strain of royal blood in his veins was well worth having.  He would certainly succeed to Bernardo Galvez, whether the wait he long or short.

He kept Braxton Wyatt with him all the time.  He had learned to appreciate the value of the renegade’s unscrupulous cunning, and he was necessary, too, in order to carry out the great alliance with the tribes which Alvarez meant should become an accomplished fact.

It was a pleasant house that Alvarez had within the walls, one story of brick covered with red tiles, surrounded by piazzas, and standing in grounds thick with magnolias, cypresses, and orange trees.  In truth, the foliage was so dense that by daylight the house was almost entirely hidden from the city, and by night it was quite invisible unless lights chanced to twinkle through the leaves.